A small-scale ethnographic study investigated: (1) the instructional role of the paraprofessional/teacher aide in dealing with the educational needs of limited-English-proficient (LEP) students; (2) to what extent the paraprofessional is aware of those needs; (3) whether ethnic or linguistic differences between paraprofessionals yield distinctive…

Readings on language and literacy within their social context include: "The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages" (Bronislaw Malinowski); "Toward Ethnographies of Communication" (Dell Hymes); "Language as Social Semiotic" (M. A. K. Halliday); "Language and Ideology" (V. N. Volosinov); "Family…

With the rapid increase of ethnic minorities entering industrial societies and interacting with mainstream cultures, issues of cultural and linguistic differences must be addressed. Particularly relevant to educators is understanding the process of acculturation and socialization of uprooted ethnic or low-income minority children. Such children…

The Kosrae (Micronesia) Department of Education operated a Title VII transitional bilingual education program from 1986-89, targeting the 1986-87 cohort of seventh graders. During the first 2 years, the students attended five village elementary schools, and during the third year attended the high school. This cohort had been targeted in previous…

A research strategy is presented which enables the development of science and mathematics curriculums for American Indian and Alaska Native children of diverse cultures based on existing subsistence knowledge and skills. This strategy assumes that American Indian and Alaska Native adults implicitly make use of many formal science and mathematics…

Implicated in contributing to the problems youth today face in trying to claim an education, an informed active participation in the social order, dominant discourses of desire in education foreclose formal, critical analysis of social structures that construct, police, entreat, and deny desire. Looking at the ways in which desire is encoded in…

Designed for presentation in three two-hour class periods, this five-unit module presents both a conceptual framework for the study and analysis of Indian communities and a guide to instructors in schools of social work for presentation of this framework to students in a classroom setting. Primary focus is upon federally recognized tribal…

This ethnographic study investigated the implementation process of mathematics curriculum initiatives designed to improve student achievement in a test-driven accountability environment. The research focused on complex factors within the school contextual environment influencing implementation and student achievement specifically, leadership;…

Describes how Oyster Bilingual School's (Washington, DC) two-way Spanish-English language plan functions in its sociopolitical context. It is noted that this plan is part of a larger identity plan aiming to promote social change by socializing children differently from the way they are socialized in mainstream US educational discourse. (46…

The school lives of culturally diverse young adolescents identified as potential dropouts were studied ethnographically. Data collected across two years indicated that teachers who students considered most successful in helping them learn used practices based on knowledge about students' home cultures and knowledge about the impact of students'…

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to explore the development of belief systems as related to racial and ethnic identities of preservice teachers as they crossed cultural borders into science teaching. Data were collected throughout a yearlong teacher preparation program to learn how early life experiences and racial and ethnic identities…

The study of video game effects has been marked by two very different approaches. The first approach is represented by social scientists, who, with some exceptions, seek to understand the effects of games on users. The second approach is favored by humanists, who seek to understand the meaning and context of games. To date, these two groups have…

This ethnography explores teachers' perspectives of the cultural issues affecting academic performance in twelve public high schools in rural Mississippi and Louisiana. From a thematic analysis of the tape-recorded interviews of forty-one mathematics teachers, five categories emerged, each comprising a qualitative aspect of teaching high school in…

The topic of how reflexivity ought to be utilized in the global aspect of research is yet to be fully theorized in educational research. Through the use of rigorous reflexivity, this paper examines a "halfie" researcher's negotiation of insider and outsider identities within his transnational home/field site of Nepal. By examining how…

The major literature review by Black and Wiliam (1998a) provided strong research evidence indicating that assessment for learning can produce significant gains in students' learning. The present study applied the main aspects of assessment for learning, as highlighted in the Black and Wiliam review, in a specific area of science education, that of…